Echoes of a Swansong
by K. Pepper
Summary: Two humans slowly come to terms with the loss of their planet and loved ones as they're pulled into the chaos of survival and alien civil war.
1. Prologue: Adrift

**Starbound: Echoes of a Swansong**

 **Prologue: Adrift**

 _Why am I alive?_ Cold, distant stars floated lazily through Bailey's field of vision. Slowly, the little pinpricks of light turned into a vague haze as the interior of the transport vessel's cockpit fogged with condensation. _Why did I survive just to die out here?_ The condensation froze quickly into patterns of hoarfrost, but Bailey couldn't even bring herself to shiver. She was too numb with cold and grief and shock. Death was a certainty; it was only a matter of how long.

Earth was gone. She'd watched it happen. She'd seen that terrifying tentacled creature erupt from the planet. She'd watched her comrades crushed, strangled... ripped apart. It was all such a blur, she had to close her eyes and concentrate to make sense of it. She wished now that she hadn't run, hadn't escaped in the downed transport ship- that she hadn't had to drag the pilot's mutilated corpse out of the cockpit first. His blood was still staining the seat , soaked and dried into her warm clothes. Yes... it would have been so much easier to die there, quickly, than to freeze to death or run out of oxygen here in the lifeless expanse of deep space.

She had never felt so utterly isolated in her life. No matter where she had gone, both on Earth and off, she'd always gone with the knowledge that people waited for her back home, whether she wanted to see them or not. She'd spent so much of her adult life trying to get away from so many people, only to wish more than anything to be with them now that they were gone forever. _Mom... Dad... David... I'm so sorry._ Tears wouldn't come. The sorrow faded quickly into a void of emotion, as if it, too, were sucked into the oblivion of space.

The slowly blinking blue light on the dash changed to yellow, a shrill alarm needlessly alerting her that she had only an hour of oxygen left. The ship, already damaged, was never meant for lengthy deep space travel. Without a planet or a larger ship to dock with, there was little she could do but turn the alarm off, take what could be her last deep breath, and hope to fall asleep so that her end was peaceful.

She was starting to fade when the communications system chirped an inappropriately cheerful note, signaling that she was being hailed. She was confused at first, delirious from lack of air and unfamiliar with the ship. She was no pilot, to be sure. Mere luck had gotten her this far.

With growing realization, she smacked buttons on the console; any buttons. With no fuel and no life support, there wasn't a whole lot left for her to screw up, anyway. An eternity later, her finger lighted on the right toggle and a voice filtered statically through the speakers.

"-To transport, do you read? Is anyone there? Over."

"I'm here!" she cried, her voice hoarse and weak. "Get me the hell out of here, please..." She hated how pitiful she sounded.

"This is Letheia freight ship Crusca. Standby for pickup."

She drew in as much breath as she could in the thinning air for a sigh of relief. In spite of everything, she didn't want to die. She didn't want to die at all.


	2. Chapter 1: The EMF Disaster

The delayed answer from the communications center was the first sign that something was wrong. Carmack Ackers sat uneasily in the pilot's chair of his beat up old freighter, idly rubbing the barely-there stubble on his chin. "Erchius Minin' Facility, do ya copy?" he repeated in his slow Texan drawl. The lanky human thumbed the comm frequency, ready to switch to another when he finally received his reply.

"Freighter E-1016, we read you." The quavering voice was nearly drowned out by a cacophony of unidentifiable noise. Carmack winced, rubbing his ears. "Listen... If you can help us out, you can have the damned shipment for free! Please!" The man on the channel was clearly terrified.

The cerulean haired pilot frowned. "Well, help with what? Ya'll sound like yer in a bit of a pinch."

"Creatures! Some sort of- of monsters, invading-" The channel went out in a burst of static.

"Dammit!" Carmack grunted, guiding the ship into the docking bay. He wasn't exactly ready for a fight, but his mama didn't raise no coward. If these folks needed help, then help they'd get. Darting out of his chair the moment the ship had settled to the ground, he grabbed up the only weapons he had- a low powered pair of plasma pistols- and buckled the holsters to his jeans. "Shoulda invested in a suit of armor insteada that set of microcalibrators," he mused ruefully to himself, and opened the hatch.

The facility was eerily dark. He had to squint to make out the building against the black velvet of deep space. Positioned on an atmosphereless asteroid, the mining operation was far from any real help and Carmack knew it. Despite the nanoskin that allowed him to breath and make his way safely into the building, he still shivered at the chill touch of the void. He'd never get used to that.

The sliding automatic door was wedged open a half inch, just enough for him to dig his fingers in and force it the rest of the way. Inside, it was so dark he had to unclip the flashlight from his belt and turn it on to see his own hand in front of his face. It was quiet as the grave, and abandoned as far as he could tell. He leaned over and tried to boot up one of the computers, but to no avail. Something had cut off the power to this section.

He swallowed hard, common sense telling him to get the hell out of there. It went against his every instinct to take the nearby stairwell into the blackness of the mines, and God knew what was waiting in them. From there he could hear unsettling echoes. Some sounded like screams; some didn't sound human at all. He drew a pistol with his free hand and cocked it, holding it ready as he descended the stairs. He wasn't even sure if there was anyone left to save.

He'd never been down into the facility before. He'd made numerous pickups, but his ship was loaded up in the docking bay, and he'd never had any reason to go further. Maybe when the place was lit up and abuzz with activity, it was pleasant as a summer day, but dark, devoid of people, and echoing with eerie sounds, he couldn't imagine anyone wanting to work in a place like this. He leaned over, trying to peer into the shadows of a sloping corridor with the aid of the flashlight. Emptiness greeted him, but as he straightened up, something smacked the floor behind him. A cold touch grazed his bare arm, and he whirled, pistol pointed. The flashlight beam shone on the pink, swollen face of a strange alien creature like none he'd ever seen before. Fleshy growths hung from its features, quivering grotesquely. Its gait was uneven and stilted, but nevertheless, it moved at him with surprising agility. With a horrified, startled cry, Carmack squeezed the trigger in rapid succession, the tense muscles of his arm fighting the recoil and keeping his aim steady.

Four. Five. Six shots until the thing finally swayed and fell, nearly landing on him. Carmack stood and stared at it, breath coming in short, anxious pants. Tentatively, he flipped the thing over with the toe of his boot, confirming what he'd thought he'd seen. The creature was wearing a miner's uniform. This mutation had once been human.

He suddenly felt extremely vulnerable, wearing nothing but an oil-stained sleeveless shirt, a battered pair of jeans, and a red and white cap that had seen better days. His attire offered no protection against attack- or contagions. If something infected the employees here, could it infect him, too? Was it already too late? Following the beam of his flashlight, he jogged down the corridor, hoping fervently to find survivors. At least then he'd know he might be alright.

The shadows cast from his bouncing light seemed to make everything sinister. A rocky outcropping suddenly became the hunched figure of a humanoid. The glistening pink Erchius veins in the wall glinted and almost seemed to move, the light's glow refracting from their facets and creating confusing images. He had to resist the urge to point his gun at every shape, and by the time he arrived at the door at the end of the hall, his heart was racing.

This door, too, was inactive, and he couldn't seem to pry it open. _I need to find a breaker,_ he thought, sure he could coax it into working. He pressed his ear to the door, encouraged that he thought he could hear voices on the other side. Maybe some of the facility's workers _had_ made it to relative safety after all.

He thought for a few moments. Without being familiar with the place, trying to find the breaker behind all the locked doors would be like trying to find a needle in a haystack. If he could just get this door open, maybe the people he hoped were on the other side could offer some help. Or maybe they were the only ones left and they could all just get out of here. He rummaged through his pockets, his collection of tools clinking together, and pulled out several he thought might be useful here.

First, he pried the door's maintenance panel open and poked around the wiring inquisitively. Every now and then, he would turn around and shine the flashlight back down the hall to make sure nothing was coming. He was sure there were more of those things out there somewhere. Some wire, alligator clips, and a portable battery later, the door made a very unhealthy frizzling sound and slid open halfway before his improvisation gave up on itself. At least it was enough.

The nervous buzz of people talking in hushed tones met his ears, and he held up the light to reveal himself a bit more clearly. "It's alright," he called. "I'm here to help." He glanced over his shoulder again and forced the door most of the way shut.

The area, dimly lit by a red emergency light, seemed to be a small bunkhouse with a common area. A half dozen frightened miners and scientists were gathered, likely barricaded against other monstrosities like the one Carmack had already encountered. Most of them did not appear to be armed, and the few who were didn't wield anything of any greater power than his pistols. They all were clearly frightened.

"What happened here?" he asked, holstering his guns for the time being. "And is there a breaker I can throw? Might stand a better chance if I can see what I'm fighting."

"Hey, you're that pilot I was talking to. You made it in," a short, sandy-haired man said hopefully. At least, Carmack thought he was short. To him, pushing nearly six foot five, most everyone looked short.

"And you made it out. When the comm shut off, I was afraid the worst'd happened," the pilot admitted.

"That's when the power cut out. I managed to get in here and Lawson hotwired the door shut." He looked nervously towards that same door which now showed a few inches of the blackness from the hall.

"I'll fix it before I go," Carmack promised in response to the man's despondent expression.

The communications officer nodded. "Right then... If you take a left down the corridor and go down the stairwell, I think you'll find Doctor Cresus, who can show you where the breaker is- and probably could use some cover fire."

Carmack simply nodded in acknowledgment and headed for the door. "This Doctor Cresus gonna fill me in on what's goin' on here?" he asked over his shoulder.

"Yeah," the man said ruefully, "and hopefully how to fix it."

He forced the door open just enough to squeeze back out and went back to work on the panel. It took twice as long to get the damned thing shut as it did to get it open, but eventually he heard it latch with a hiss of compressed air. Flashlight beam once again pointed in front of him, he jogged into the left corridor and took the stairs two at a time. Being this deep in the blackness in his little circle of light gave him the chills, and as he scanned the area with his gun pointed once again, another fast-moving pinkish mutant sprang out of the darkness to swing clumsily at him with a battered rock hammer.

Carmack jumped the last six steps, landing heavily, and fired off a couple of shots at the creature with a startled cry. The first went wide, blowing a chunk out of the wall, but the second pierced clean through the abomination's shoulder. It didn't even flinch.

Before he could fire again, he was forced to dodge another ponderous swing and found his back scraping the rough, stony wall. He braced himself, but before the attack could land, two quick blasts of light struck the monster from behind. It turned, embedding the hammer into the ground with an earth-shaking _chunk_ , but its new assailant had already darted out of sight again. As Carmack watched, a woman in a long lab coat dove from behind the doorway and fired another burst at the mutant. He took the opportunity the distraction caused and, coming away from the wall, fired off two quick shots at near point black range to the back of its bloated head.

It landed solidly at his feet, and lowering his gun, he turned his attention towards the woman. "Doctor Cresus?" he guessed dryly.

"Bailey," she corrected. "We don't have time for titles here." She gestured him into the opposite hall. "You picked a hell of a time to visit the EMF. What are you doing down here?"

"Suffice it to say I'm helpin," he drawled.

"Suffice it to say," was her somewhat curt response. She was wearing some sort of visual apparatus that covered one eye and glowed a faint blue in the darkness. It was hard to make out her features, but she seemed young, in her twenties, and had a long braid of dark hair that hung over one shoulder. Despite the situation, her expression was calm and collected, her overall demeanor terse. It was almost as if the situation annoyed rather than alarmed her.

Somewhat taken aback at her attitude, Carmack frowned, an edge creeping into his voice. "I'm tryin' to find a breaker so we can actually see what we're fightin'. You gonna help, or keep on makin' smartass remarks?"

She regarded him from the corner of her eye, taking a bit more notice than before. "...Down that hall, to the right. If you're really here to help... I'm going all the way down to the source of this and blowing it up. Could be a one way trip, so you can back out any time if you like."

"No need to be a martyr, Miss Bailey. I've got yer back. Now about that breaker... I'd _really_ like to be able to see. _I_ ain't got no fancy eyepatch on my noggin." He followed along behind her, ducking his head under a low doorway. She was decently tall for a woman, but he still stood a full head and shoulders taller. Broad shouldered, athletic, and freckle-faced, Carmack had the look of a strong farmhand, not an interstellar freight pilot.

She lowered her voice, indicating two more creatures shuffling about in the hall. "We're gonna have to fight through. Once that breaker's thrown, all of the automatic doors will reactivate, emergency barricades will open... All hell might break loose. Those pea-shooters of yours and this portable mining laser I'm carrying might not be enough to get by."

Carmack narrowed his eyes, taking stock of the situation. "Any better weapons 'round here?" he asked quietly, his flashlight now dark and clipped to his belt to avoid alerting the mutants.

"This is a mining facility, not an armory. You're sadly probably the best armed man in this place." She whipped back around the corner. "They're headed this way."

The pilot pointed both of his guns into the shadows, unable to see much else aside from the dim light of her eyepiece and the feint pinkish glow of Erchius crystals. He could hear the shuffling slaps of the creatures' feet hitting the stone, but they remained hidden from his view. Reflexively, he backed up a step, heart hammering in his chest. Ready... Aim...

Neither of them expected the attack from behind. The creature that they hadn't seen coming slashed at Carmack with an over-sized hand, knocking the wind out of him and sending him sprawling onto the ground. His guns went spinning off into the darkness in opposite directions. He rolled over just in time for the mutant to belch some sort of acrid, acidic fluid across his face and torso, making his skin sting. He couldn't open his eyes. He coughed and gagged, retching at the smell, the taste, gasping in pain. He could hear the woman, Bailey, firing her weapon in an attempt to help him, but there were two others coming at them. She couldn't take them all herself.

Something cold and wet hit his face and he coughed and sputtered again, but the pain diminished and his eyes seemed clear of the goo. Bailey knelt over him, holding up some sort of glowing energy field that sprang from a device strapped to her wrist. A mostly-empty water bottle lay on the floor next to him. In the light the shield cast, he could see one creature stumbling back to its feet, having been knocked flat by the unexpected barrier. The other two were charging around the corner, and probably wouldn't be held back for long. He had to act fast, or both of them were going to die.

He struggled to his feet and charged at the first to appear, ducking low and slamming it into the wall with his shoulder. Even without a weapon, he was no pushover. He pounded his fist into the thing's head over and over until his knuckles throbbed and that horrible, fleshy face oozed with blood. He threw its limp form into the other oncoming monster as it rounded the corner, sending it sprawling to the ground. The third that Bailey had knocked over never had the chance to get to its feet as she cut it clean in half with the mining laser. Now that he could see, if only a little bit, he managed to relocate his pistols and put a few extra holes into the heads of the other two. This done, he sagged, panting, against the wall.

"You going to be alright?" Bailey asked, her voice holding a little less vitriol than before. "Looks like you took a nasty chemical burn." She retrieved the water bottle and offered him what little was left in it to wash the stuff off his shirt.

"I reckon I'll be feelin' that for awhile," he said hoarsely. He hacked a few more times and finally spit anything he could manage to get out onto the floor. "Not completely sure what happened, but I think ya just saved me. Thanks fer that."

"Well, you're not much help to me dead, are you?" she said, though her face held a hint of a relieved smile. "Didn't catch your name."

"It's Carmack. That's a fancy little shield thingy ya got there." He nodded to the device.

"It's a miniaturized shield generator. It's mine. You can't have it," she answered in deadpan.

He raised his hands defensively. "Hey now, just sayin'." He pinched the front of his shirt and fanned it, trying to dry it out and get more of the caustic slime off of it. It hurt, but it didn't seem to be melting his flesh or anything.

"Well, Mack, the breaker's up ahead. I find myself in hearty agreement that I'd like you to be able to _see_ the enemy." She gestured for him to follow her up the darkened corridor.

"I reckon that eyepiece of yers is lettin' ya see in the dark?" he guessed, giving up on the shirt and following.

"It's handy," she responded almost gleefully. "It gives me atmospheric readouts, temperature, radiation, ultraviolet, infrared, heat signatures- there's a setting for everything on this baby." She glanced back at him. "And it's-"

"Also yers and I can't have it, neither." He grinned rather coyly. "I get it, Bails. You keep yer toys. I'll just play with my pea-shooters."

"You learn fast," she said with a smirk. "You never did say what you're doing down here."

"Came in fer a shipment. Saw you folks needed a hand. It's as simple as that," he shrugged.

"A regular boy scout. You'd dive into a disaster like this for a bunch of strangers?"

He frowned. "Call me a softy. Oh, I'd prolly do it fer most anyone, but this here's a human facility, so it hits a little closer to home..." He winced inwardly. Home. Home was long gone.

"You were from Earth too, weren't you?" The edge was gone from her voice, replaced by a sort of world-weary exhaustion. "Well... never mind that. The breaker's on the other side of this emergency barrier. I'm not sure how we'll get through, but-"

He already had his tools out. "Leave that one to me. Hotwirin's simple enough."

She watched him work. "Well... You're not as dumb as you look," she said finally when the door slid open.

He examined the breaker apparatus. "Nope. Not entirely," he said as he began reconfiguring the scorched panel. "Yep... got a short in the system. A few shorts. Might need ya to watch my back while I fix this."

Bailey leaned against the doorway, scanning the shadows in the hall. "You probably figured this out by now, but those mutants were facility employees," she said carefully, her tone neutral. "There's some sort of... bio-geological organism in the lowest level of the mine that's somehow been infecting anyone who comes in contact with it." She hesitated, about to say more, but shook her head.

"Bio-geological? That's a new one. You tryin' to say it's a livin' rock?" Mack asked, glancing up at her, his fingers pausing in his work of re-wiring the system.

"For lack of a better way to put it, yes. I thought it was the biggest Erchius deposit we'd ever seen at first, but it... opened. Like an eye. It makes me wonder, though, if these crystals are a byproduct of that thing."

"You sound like you were there to see it," he observed. "Seems like you got away okay."

"Only because someone else didn't." Her flat tone couldn't entirely hide her remorse. "Anyway, I'm going down there to put an end to that thing."

Mack tweaked one more wire into place. "Sounds personal. Why make it yer sole responsibility?"

There was a long silence followed by a deep sigh. "I discovered it. As one of the head geologists, I wanted to study it. I don't think I need to explain how horribly wrong it all went." She gripped the door frame, her back rigid.

"And these critters we've been killin'... You knew 'em."

"I don't want to think about that," she snapped brusquely. "I don't want to stand and consider who those last three might have been. I don't want to sit around and feel sorry for myself. I want to kill that thing. End of discussion."

Mack watched her back, since she wouldn't turn to face him. A part of him understood what she must be going through. "I'll help ya take this thing out on one condition." He put his tools away.

"What's that?"

"You gotta try to stay alive. Killin' yerself ain't gonna bring 'em back, and it ain't gonna fix anything. We'll find a way to put an end to whatever's down there, and we'll come out alive after. Alright? No suicide missions." He folded his arms.

Bailey sighed. "Alright, you've made your point, Mack. If it'll stop you from making another speech, I won't do anything 'reckless.'"

He nodded, satisfied, and threw the lever. With a low, thrumming hum, the facility came to life, illuminating just how much trouble they were in.


	3. Chapter 2: Tattered Resolve

::Author's Note:: Hello! Up until now, I've held off on interrupting the story with any notes, but I just wanted to give my humble gratitude to the couple of reviewers who've let me know they're reading. Any and all feedback is very, very appreciated, as are corrections in my spelling, grammar, punctuation, and continuity. It means a lot to know that people are enjoying my writing, and though I try not to base my will to write on whether or not I get reviews, the feedback really is a huge motivator. To all you other Starbound fans out there, let's help this poor, little-visited fandom on grow! It's a wonderful game that deserves the recognition, especially with its full release fast approaching! I'd love to see more fiction posted here and more reviews on _everyone's_ hard work; not only mine. Happy reading, and let all of us authors know that you're out there!::

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The sudden light was blinding after spending so long in the darkness. Mack shielded his eyes with one hand, squinting against the abrupt brilliance. An ear-vibrating buzz filled the air as the hydraulics in the emergency bulkheads whirred to life. One by one, they began to open, the mutated miners trapped behind them shuffling through aimlessly. It was only a matter of moments before they noticed the half-blinded pair of humans standing next to the fuses.

"Bailey?" Mack murmured, blinking his vision back into focus. "I think we gots company..." He slid his pistols from their holsters, backing against the wall tensely.

Whatever setting she'd had her eyepiece on, it must have been unexpectedly bright when the lights winked to life. She had the thing off and was opening and closing her right eye rapidly to disperse the glowing afterimage. At his word, she set it back on her head and took a long look at their situation. "It's worse than I thought," she responded quietly. "I'd hoped the infected hadn't dispersed so far before the bulkheads closed. There might not be anyone left alive in the lower levels..."

Mack shook his head. "Ya can't think like that. Even if there's one person trapped down there, it's still worth tryin' to save 'em."

"We have to save ourselves first," she answered, searching for an opening to escape. "There are too many of them to take all at once."

He saw it before she did; one of the creatures was still carrying a mining laser and seemed to have a vague recollection of how to use it. The tools, meant to shave away packed dirt and stone, didn't quite have the range of a gun but could nevertheless cut through flesh as easily as they could stone at moderately close range. The warped EMF employee was already close enough to be a threat, and fired the laser the moment it turned and spotted them. Mack grabbed Bailey by the shoulders, whipping her out of the way.

The blast grazed his bare shoulder, slicing a shallow gash that was instantly cauterized by the heat of the beam. He grunted in pain. Immediately, Bailey brought her shield generator up and activated it, deflecting another shot that might have done a lot more damage to the lanky pilot.

"'S'cuse me, ma'am." He reached around either side of her waist, guns still in each hand, and fired in rapid succession at their attacker. The mutant collapsed in a heap, but the echoing sounds of the gunfire alerted every other monster in the vicinity of their presence, and they began to converge on the pair.

Mack dropped his arms from the unintentional embrace as Bailey swung away and fired a couple of blasts from her mining laser. "If we can get to one of the bulkheads, we can close it manually. Come on!" she prompted, gesturing with her free hand.

She charged ahead. There was no direction that would lead them away from the creatures, but at least this way, they weren't simply standing and waiting to be attacked. Mack lowered his shoulder and rushed at the nearest that stood between him and his destination. He checked it hard into the wall, its head bouncing off the stone with a sickening thud. A hastily aimed pistol blast insured it wouldn't be getting up again.

Bailey raced ahead, almost appearing as if she, too, were going to attempt a similar maneuver despite her smaller size. At the last second, she ducked and slid beneath the swinging arms of another foe and kicked its legs from beneath it with a sweep of her foot. She slammed her elbow into its face as it came down.

Mack grabbed her arm on the way past and helped haul her to her feet. "Nice moves," he acknowledged with a tension-breaking grin. "We got this." They raced through the open bulkhead, but they weren't alone in the section.

"Cover me!" Bailey yelled as she ran for the activation panel. "It takes a key code; I just need a few seconds!"

"You'll get 'em," Mack promised, laying down a barrage of cover fire. Two mutants were already in the room and a third, larger one was plodding up from a stairwell. The smallest of the three bolted at him with a much greater amount of speed than the others he'd encountered. It opened its sinewy mouth menacingly. He dove and rolled out of the way as its acidic vomit spewed onto the ground, missing him by mere inches.

"Got it!" the geologist yelled, but as the bulkhead slid shut, one of the pursuing monsters from the hall managed to dive through, tackling her to the ground. She struggled to aim the mining laser, but it was pinned painfully underneath her.

"I'm comin', Bails!" Mack got to his feet, but he was forced to change direction almost immediately. The three moved to surrounding him, and though he fired both pistols as rapidly as his fingers could pull the trigger, the quick little devil that had nearly spit on him evaded with maddening agility. The guns were starting to feel hot in his hands, overheating from being fired too much too quickly. "Ah, shit-"

Bailey's assailant brought its own mining laser to bare, pointing it at her head. The monster was standing on her outstretched left arm, pinning the shield generator uselessly to the floor. She took a deep breath. There was only one way out of this one. Angling the laser that lay pinned beneath her, she squeezed the trigger and let out a ragged cry as it pierced through the flesh of her side and nailed the mutant square in the neck.

"Bailey?" Mack called, unable to get to her. The largest was closing in on him, and it was wielding a very nasty looking pickax. It lifted the weapon for an arching swing, but Mack turned on heel as the pick descended. He snagged the small, fast creature by the arm and swung it into the path of the tool. The sharp edge pierced through its head, embedding so deeply that when the larger mutant pulled it back, the unfortunate little creature was still hanging from it.

The third struck him from behind, knocking the wind out of him. He twisted as he fell so that he landed on his back. He tried to fire a pistol at it, but the charge was still cooling. "Sonofa-" He swung the butt of the gun into the creature's face, knocking it backwards. He used the moment's distraction to jump to his feet and run to Bailey. "Hey! You alright?!"

"It's not serious," she said, wincing, and struggled to her feet. "What about you? Something wrong with your guns?"

"Overheated," he grunted. "Can I borrow that there laser a' yers?"

She pressed it into his hand. "Know how to use it?"

"I'm a faster learner." He took a brief moment to look it over then turned, pointed, and fired at the hulking mutant as it came at him, the little one still impaled on its pickax. The laser pierced straight through its skull and it toppled to the floor. "See? I always was good at pop quizzes."

In spite of the situation, Bailey snorted. "You're something else, Carmack Akers. I'll give you that."

He quickly dispatched the remaining problem with the laser. "Yer not so bad in a scrap, yerself." With a moment to breath, he turned to examine her wound. "Shot yerself to get 'em, eh? That was quick thinkin'. Looks bad, though."

"Don't worry about it. The lasers cauterize instantly because of the heat, so I won't be bleeding all over the place. It just hurts like hell." She did, however, accept his arm to lean on as she tried to get her bearings. Lethal or not, the pain was dizzying.

"You sure you're okay to keep goin'?" His voice held a note of concern. "Things could get worse'n this, an' I don't wanna see you push yerself too hard and get yerself killed."

"I'll be fine," she insisted. "I'm pretty sure it didn't hit anything vital. I'm not dumb enough to kill myself with my own laser." She made her way to the stairwell and started down stiffly. Mack could tell that she was favoring her left side while trying not to show it. He followed her promptly, checking his pistols to be sure they'd cooled off enough to be useful. They had.

With light flooding the mines, Mack was finally able to take in his surroundings. None of the tunnels were smaller than a comfortable hallway; this much he'd been somewhat aware of before. He hadn't, however, been able to see the vast extent of different paths and levels that crisscrossed each other, some leading to huge chasms that had been excavated for hundreds of feet. He was keenly grateful that he'd bumped into Bailey. He would have been hopelessly lost by now.

"So let me ask ya," he said, addressing the geologist as they pressed onward. "Why go try to kill that beasty at all? Why not just evacuate and call the mines a loss?"

She shook her head. "I'm positive there are still people trapped in the lower levels. My team was down there with me when we discovered that thing..." She trailed off, letting the silence linger in the air for a moment. "A crystal that size would weigh several tons at least. We were going to use the mining laser- the industrial one, not this little laser pointer I have- to cut it into manageable pieces. First blast, and there was a giant eyeball staring back at us. At least... I think it was an eyeball. Of course, the rest of the team freaked out and were charging up to hit it again and kill whatever it was." She took a long breath and let out a regretful sigh. "And like an idiot, I stopped them. I wanted to know what it was, _how_ it was... There's been a lot of crazy organisms discovered throughout the galaxy, but until now, I had yet to stumble across a living mineral." She let out a short, bitter laugh. "You know, in the movies, I'd have been the first to die."

Mack briefly took off his hat and scratched the back of his head. "Wuzzat s'posed ta mean?"

"You know, that one stupid scientist who wants to study the monster when it's clearly a bad idea- and then proceeds to get promptly eaten by said monster." Her expression turned stony. "No, instead, it attacked my team. It changed the first few into mutants; I'm not sure how it's been spreading since. Regardless, I think a few of the guys down there managed to hole up behind a barricade. I need to find out for sure and get them out of there if I'm right. I owe them that much."

The Texan looked down at her for a moment and put his hand on her shoulder. "It weren't yer fault, Bailey. I know it don't seem that way now, but ain't it better ta give a livin' bein' a chance before blowin' it up? Ya did the right thing, even if it turned out all wrong. I get why ya wanna fix it so bad, but ya need ta stop blamin' yerself."

She tried to straighten up, but winced in pain and clutched her side for a moment. When he offered her his arm again, she waved it away. "My father always told me not to apologize for my actions, but to take responsibility for them. That's what I'm doing. I'm not wasting my time being sorry. I'm fixing the problem. Even if there aren't many people left to fix it for."

Mack sighed. "I can see some merit in that, I guess. My pappy always said a real man admits when he's wrong... So I guess apologies are nice, too." He eased up to a corner and peeked around, making sure the coast was clear. Confirming that it was, he waved her forward. "I still don't think it's really yer fault, though. It was just real bad luck."

"Yeah. Bad luck," she responded bitterly. "Story of my life. I don't trust chance enough to leave anything up to it anymore."

"Ya can't control everything." He paused at an intersection, awaiting her direction.

"But I can control what I care about... And if I choose not to care, then not being in control of it won't matter to me." Before he could respond, she held her hand up for silence and nodded toward one of the dimly-lit hallways. Mack frowned, counting at least five of the unnatural creatures at a glance. His eyes flicked to hers, a silent question if they needed to go that way. In response, she pointed down an empty corridor and the two darted past the enemy-laden passage as silently as they could.

"How much further?" Mack mouthed, his words barely above a whisper. His eyes continuously scanned the shadows in the tunnels ahead. As they pressed on, the facility was growing more and more rough in appearance. Gone were the well-lit halls, wide, even corridors, and sliding doors. The mines now looked the way one would traditionally picture such a place; dark, menacing, and treacherous.

Bailey paused, pressing one hand against the wall and leaning on it. Mack could tell she was in a good deal of pain. He didn't exactly feel like a million pixels himself, but he was pretty sure she had the worst of it. "Not much further, but the stairs are gonna be a bitch. We didn't get an elevator down to this level yet."

He stopped her with a hand on her shoulder before she could keep going. "Listen. I can tell yer the stubborn sort, but yer already slowin' down. What're you gonna do once we're facin' that thing? By the time you get to the bottom of those stairs..." He shook his head.

Bailey frowned, looked away, and pulled a syringe out of her coat pocket. "I'm saving this," she admitted, turning it so the red liquid inside sloshed back and forth. Mack recognized the artificial adrenaline and let out a sigh.

"You sure 'bout this? That stuff'll mess you up if ya take too much. I've heard when ya come down from it, ya crash hard... And if ya go overboard, ya don't recover from that crash."

"I know the risks. And yes, that includes the possibility of overtaxing myself. But wouldn't you say this situation calls for it?"

He made a little half-shrugging gesture with his hands. "Yer the doc, Doc."

"First off," she said, resuming their trek forward, "there's a bit of a difference between medical and geological knowledge. Secondly, I've told those morons a hundred times that I never got my doctorate. They were just so thrilled to stumble on somebody with honest-to-God field experience and survival skills that they kept wanting to drum up my importance."

Mack chuckled softly. "Guess it's a compliment, at least. They wouldn't've if ya didn't know yer stuff."

"Yeah. Because my knowledge got them _so_ far," she said bitterly.

The lights here were high on the roughly hewn walls, their faint luminescence lost quickly to the vastness of the hollowed out chasm. Mack wasn't sure exactly when tunnel had become expansive chamber, but gradually the winding halls had widened and joined together into one void-like space. He let out a low whistle. "Would ya look at the size a' that," he murmured, turning on his flashlight. The beam was swallowed by darkness before it could glance off the ceiling.

Bailey watched his reaction and then followed his gaze. "I guess being here nearly a year, I've gotten used to it. But yes, it's really something when you take the time to look," she agreed quietly. Her attention was grabbed by a distant glimmer of light and the echoes of human voices. She froze, holding up her hand. "Mack... Did you hear that?"

He focused on her point of interest, squinting his eyes. "Survivors!" he exclaimed with renewed hope. "C'mon, Bails! Ya were right not to give up!"

Athletic though she was, she struggled to keep up with his long-legged gait- and she was pretty sure he could run a lot faster if he wanted to. The wound in her side didn't help, but the adrenaline that was making her heart race gave her an extra burst of speed. These people had given her a home when she'd had none. She had to save as many as she could.

Their approach was met with shouts of alarm and raised weapons. Mack lifted his light over his head and shined it down on himself. "We're human!" he called. "Don't shoot!"

"It's me!" Bailey added when she'd caught up. "Head Geologist Cresus-" She winced at the sudden pang in her side. "Is there anything new to report?" she managed as she caught her breath.

There were five men in total, all with a random assortment of weapons that must have been personal possessions stored away in lockers until the emergency. Bailey knew that some of the workers here were more mercenary than miner, going wherever the money was good and taking their weapons with them whether they needed them or not.

One of the five stepped forward, cradling a plasma rifle with a spotlight and a scope attached to the barrel. It must have been the light she'd seen. "So you're the one we have to thank for this," the man growled. He was a stocky fellow with too much scruff on his face to be considered stubble but not quite enough to be a beard. His dark eyes looked black and menacing in the dim light. "Pulled one of the teammates you abandoned out of the shaft. He told me all about it."

Before she could respond, Mack stepped forward, one hand lifted as if to try to calm the pissed off mercenary. "Hold on now. Miss Cresus is here tryin' to fix the problem. She ain't abandonin' nobody."

The merc snorted. "Don't let that cold fish's looks reel you in. I don't know what it is she wants down there, but I guarantee you're the meat shield." He nodded to Bailey. "This _is_ your mess. Now you get into that mine and fix it, or don't bother coming out."

Mack straightened, a deep scowl creasing his brow. "Ya'll better watch the way ya talk to a lady. Way I see it, she's here, riskin' her neck to do what the rest of ya are too pants-pissin' afraid to. If I were you, I'd put those two rocks rattlin' together in yer head that ya call a brain ta work and figure somethin' out to improve the situation instead a' standin' round here pointin' fingers. Now if ya don't mind, we've got an eyeball ta poke."

For a moment, Bailey wondered if the scruffy miner was going to strike the pilot, but, at the muttered word of one of his buddies, he stood back and gestured to the deep pit that loomed behind them and said nothing.

She walked silently past the group, feeling their eyes on her back. One part of her was furious and wanted to answer the man with a solid right hook. She could have left. She could have told Mack that she and the men barricaded in the common area were all that remained and gotten the hell out of here on his ship. The mercenary's words had hit a mark, however. There was another part of her that felt she deserved every ounce of his disdain for the mistakes she _had_ made.

She almost didn't notice that Mack had come up beside her. "I know what yer thinking, and I'm tellin' ya not to think it," he said kindly. "Now, we gonna do this or what?"

She took a deep breath, refusing to show any of the fear that was welling up in the pit of her stomach. Standing on the edge of the pit, knowing what was waiting for them, she felt light-headed. She'd never walked so willingly into something so deadly. "We're doing this," she affirmed, taking the first step onto the rickety metal scaffolding that spiraled down into the seeming nothingness.

Mack's additional weight behind her caused the whole rig to sway just a little bit. She gripped the railing, white-knuckled.

"Sorry," he said sheepishly. "I'll try to step a little lighter-"

Gunfire exploded behind them and she turned about to see at least a half dozen more mutated miners converging on them out of the darkness. She lifted the portable mining laser, aiming to get a clear shot. Mack pulled out his pistols and squeezed off several rounds, but in trying not to hit the humans he wasn't able to hit the mark on the creatures, either.

The gruff merc gestured with his rifle. "Just go!" he growled. "If you really want to help, then kill that thing! We'll handle this!" He fired, his shots hitting their target and dropping one of the monsters. Still, the group of armed miners couldn't cover the entire area. Some of the mutants were heading for the mine shaft. Bailey turned and ran, keeping one hand gripped on the railing to stop herself from stumbling. A fall at this height would be fatal.

Mack kept pace with her easily, his pistols still clutched in either hand. Just as the mercenaries disappeared from their line of vision, one of the monsters launched itself over the edge of the pit, landing on the opposite side of the spiraled scaffolding. It opened its mouth and heaved acidic bile at the two. With no other direction in which to go, Mack grabbed Bailey's arm and jumped the railing, sailing over the blackness beneath them with his heart somewhere in the soles of his boots. He and Bailey managed to land about ten feet down on the opposite side. He hit the scaffolding on his wounded shoulder, Bailey landing solidly on top of him. He cried out in pain and scrambled to his feet.

Bailey was up as quickly as he was and reached into her coat pocket for the syringe of artificial adrenaline. She jammed the needle into the crook of her arm, letting out a small hiss of pain. As Mack turned back to make sure she was coming, she stabbed into his wrist and injected the remainder of the syringe's contents.

"Hey!" he yelped. "What the hell-?!"

"You need this too!" she yelled. "I just gave you a little dose. Come on!" The two leaped down another half dozen stairs to avoid more of the caustic spit as the mutant followed them down. There were others now, descending from up top. Mack's heavy landing behind her caused the scaffolding to groan. She backed up, gazing above them. "We have company," she said, pointing, and he followed the gesture of her hand with his eyes.

"Bails... I'm gonna bust the scaffold. Start runnin'." He holstered his pistols and gave her a gentle shove between the shoulder blades.

"Your ass better be following me," she responded, and continued on ahead, skipping every other step and swinging around the curves with the aid of the railing.

Mack looked up, gauging the progress of the monsters. They were getting way too close. He stomped down hard on the scaffolding a few times, testing it. He was sure there was a broken joint here somewhere, the way it had been shaking- There it was. He pressed his pistol against the cracked rivet and fired. The entire structure let out a shrill creak as the metal strained. He dropped down and lay on his back, searching up under the step for another joining point. Found it. Closing his eyes and turning his head away, he fired the pistol again, the heat from it tingling his cheek.

He slid out from under it and jumped away as it finally buckled. The huge section of scaffolding fell away from the wall with a tremendous cacophony of metallic scraping and groaning. The mutants fell off and into the abyss, the broken stairs ripping loose entirely and following them down. The whole staircase was going to give way at this rate.

He jumped again, sailing over the blackness to land heavily on the other side just as the broken scaffold slammed into the section mere feet behind him. Bailey was already lower; he could see her running along the curve of the opposite wall. She glanced up at him and he could see her mouth move, but he couldn't hear over the ear-splitting noise around him.

He ran ahead, leaping a half dozen stairs with each step and staying upright only by clutching the railing. As he caught up to her, the debris struck the stairs in front of them and they were forced to jump again to avoid being crushed or sent careening into the pit. He was suddenly grateful for the adrenaline shot; pain and exhaustion would take him later, but for now he felt nothing but boiling energy and a very healthy amount of fear.

Another impact shook the stairs, and this time the whole thing pulled away from the wall. Mack and Bailey stopped abruptly, only barely maintaining their balance as the floor beneath them began to plummet. He wrapped an arm around her waist securely. "Hang on..." he called, searching desperately for an option as the ground rushed up to meet them.

Reflexively, Bailey wrapped her arms around his waist and closed her eyes, waiting for the deadly impact. Suddenly she was hanging in the air, supported by the strong arm around her as Mack grabbed one of the railings that still clung to the wall on their way down. He let out a yell of pain as the sudden jolt on his arm yanked his shoulder out of socket, but he didn't let go of either the railing or of Bailey. With a final, horrible crash, the rest of the staircase landed in a cloud of rubble at the bottom of the pit.

Mack let out a strained groan of pain. "I can't hold on much longer," he gasped. His shoulder felt like every tendon was tearing. A fire of agony spread up his arm and down his back. It was everything he could do to keep his fist closed and not send them both falling after the debris.

"Let me go. I think I can get down from here," Bailey urged. Her arms were already wrapped tightly around him, and when he loosened his grip, she let herself slide down him until she was hanging by his waist. She hooked her fingers into the hem of his jeans for a better grip. "Hope your belt's tight," she observed wryly, positioning herself for controlled fall.

"Yeah... Me too," he managed with a grunt that might've been a chuckle. When she let go, some of the fire in his arm subsided. He still wasn't sure he could hold on much longer, but if she could find a safe place to land, she could direct him. He heard the clank of her impact and tried to look down. "Bails? Ya good?"

"Yes. Now swing to your left a little and let go." Her voice didn't sound too distant. That was a good sign.

Mack let his fingers slip off the railing, attempting to angle his fall toward her voice. He wasn't sure what he was going to land on, and with the walls of the tunnel rushing past him so quickly, he couldn't gain his bearings. He might've tumbled down the bent section of stairs if Bailey hadn't grabbed him and steadied him the moment he landed.

"I've gotcha," she reassured. "How messed up is your arm?"

"Feels like it's gonna fall off," he said with a thumbs up- with his left hand. His right arm was nearly useless. He took a look at what they'd landed on. The last fifteen feet of the drop still had some semi-intact scaffolding balanced precariously against the wall. If they were careful, they could pick their way down into the gigantic chasm beneath them. The glimmering fuchsia of Erchius crystals lit the chamber, giving hints of dimension and dark shapes. "This it?" he asked quietly.

"That's it," she affirmed. "I don't know what we're going to find down there. You still have your guns? I don't know how much good they'll do, but it's something."

He nodded. "Managed to holster 'em somewhere in all that. You said there's an industrial minin' laser down there, right?"

Bailey knelt, peering into the shadows below them. "Yeah. It was still working when I left, but it takes three people to operate. It's dangerous enough that there's multiple activation levers."

"I might be able to rig somethin' up." He looked up. "We ain't gettin' back up this way. Seems our only choice is to blow a hole in that eyeball and find another way out."

She began picking her way down the stairs. "We need to fix your shoulder," she said tonelessly. She knew just how much pain popping it back into place was going to cause, but he didn't stand much chance of rigging up anything with only one hand.

He sighed. "I know. Do it fast." He stopped, bracing himself for what he knew was going to be excruciating. Bailey took his arm in her hands and paused to look for something for him to bite down on. A brief flash and a sudden glow were the only warning she had to act. She let go, giving him a small shove.

 _"Move!"_ she cried, and the two scurried forward as a piercing white beam of energy struck the stairs behind them. As they raced down the uneven, broken scaffold, Mack got his first look at the monster that had caused all of this.

He couldn't tell if it was a living crystal itself, or an entity embedded within solid Erchius. The gigantic gem was jutting out of the rocky wall on the opposite side of the chamber. A hole had been blasted into the center of it, causing hairline cracks to spread over its smooth, glassy surface. From the fracture, a huge red eye stared, lidless and alien. Glints and glimmers ran along the crystal's surface, eventually focusing into a single spot of light at one facet.

"Here it comes again!" he called, jumping the last several feet of stairs and hitting the ground running. It felt good to have solid ground beneath his feet again, but he couldn't stop to enjoy it. Bailey close at his heels, he sprinted across the room with that horrible eye following his every move. The next blast kicked up the dirt behind them. Mack chanced a look at their assailant and skidded to an abrupt stop when the following beam slammed into the ground directly in front of him.

Bailey was still some distance behind, unable to keep up with his speed. "Stay split up!" she yelled. "Keep its attention divided! I'll get to the laser!" She gestured to the apparatus at a far corner of the room. "The secondary activation-" She was cut short by another blast of light. For a moment, Mack was afraid it had hit her, but when his vision cleared he could see her holding up her shield. She must have reacted just in time.

Mack scanned the room and was able to find the secondary activation unit on his own. He glanced at the monster in the wall above him. He couldn't tell if it was staring at him or not; that eye seemed to follow everything. Already winded, he turned to run for the unit. From what Bailey had said, there was more than one, but he'd worry about this one for now.

The room seemed to take on a deep, reddish glow and he glanced up again to see the eye producing eerie light. Something lowered to the ground from this new beam, and he realized it was another of the mutant creatures. The monster shuffled about in confusion for a few moments before its tiny black eyes focused on him and it sprinted forward.

Mack yanked out a pistol with his good hand and unloaded into the thing, backing up as he went. He was almost to the secondary activator, if he could just take this thing down. The mutant fell after the fifth shot, mere feet in front of him, but he realized that, focused on that enemy as he'd been, he hadn't noticed the crystal charging another blast of light, and now he was backed against the wall.

Bailey, unable to close the distance fast enough to be of any use, ripped the shield generator from her wrist. "Mack!" she called, flinging it across the room and praying to any deity that might be listening. They'd come this far; they were going to finish this, no matter what. She wasn't going to let them fail.

The lanky pilot dropped his gun and snatched the device out of the air. He jammed his thumb down on the switch just in time. There was enough force behind the blast that he had to brace himself to not be driven backwards, but the force field held. He was sure it couldn't take much, but it was a lifesaver in this moment.

The light abruptly winked out and the eyeball lowered another mutant to the ground in a reddish haze. This one seemed to focus on Bailey, giving Mack the chance to activate the secondary switch. The device was designed for him to have to stay and keep his hand on the lever until the main laser was fired, but it would be simple enough to jam the thing into the on position- though slightly less simple with one hand.

He pocketed the shield generator, reholstered his gun, and dug around through his tools. Pulling out a magnetic clamp, he attached it solidly to the metal on the console and hooked it around the lever, holding it tightly in position. That took care of one, but from here, he could spy the other standing inconveniently across the room.

Bailey was playing cat and mouse with her attacker, using the larger main console to shield her from its assault as she tried to get a clear shot with her portable laser. Mack didn't like leaving her to it, but if they were going to finish this, he didn't have much choice.

As he ran across the no-man's land in the middle of the room, the Erchius horror focused another beam of light at him, and he realized that the energy was following him. Despite his exhaustion, he pushed himself even harder as the beam burned at his boot heels.

He dove behind the console, landing painfully on his dislocated shoulder. The agony made him feel sick, but he forced himself to his feet, sweat beading on his forehead. He panted from pain and exhaustion as he grabbed the lever and forced it upward. "Now, Bailey!" he yelled hoarsely.

Bailey had only just finished dispatching the creature that was pursuing her. It lay in two pieces on the dirt floor, oozing unnaturally colored purplish blood. She slammed her fist into the console and the laser hummed to life, the beam already aimed at the crystalline alien. With a blinding burst of energy, it slammed into the eye.

The air was filled with a horrible screech that sounded like metal rending and glass shattering all at once. Mack wished he had his hands free to cover his ears. "Hit it again!" he cried the moment he could be heard. In answer, the mining laser flashed again, the beam piercing into the darkness, but this time the monster had a response.

Another prismatic blast erupted from the crystal, cutting through the main console. The explosion of smoke and fire that resulted sent Bailey sprawling, and Mack abandoned his post to run to her. The room was bathed in red as the eye once again focused its energy as if to lower a mutant- but this time, there was no creature. Instead, the crimson light focused on Mack as he ran. The sensation was hot and made his skin crawl. He took it into his lungs, and it made them burn. He gagged.

Bailey rolled over and coughed. "Mack!" she screamed in alarm as he was raised from the ground, elevated towards the horrible crystal. She jumped to her feet, uselessly firing the portable mining laser at the eye, but the beam couldn't reach it. In terror, she watched as her only support was absorbed into the Erchius horror.


	4. Chapter 3: The Ones Who Survived

Mack wondered if this was what drowning was like - if one were drowning in acid. His lungs screamed for air, but every time he gasped for it, he was met only with searing agony in his chest. He struggled, held fast by what felt like a sticky membrane that pressed in on him from all sides. He attempted to open his eyes, but the stinging pain prevented him from keeping them that way long enough to see anything. He tried to collect his thoughts and figure out what had just happened.

 _Inside. I'm inside it._ The thought horrified him, and he struggled with renewed vigor. He bumped into something solid and fleshy, but the little snatches of blurred vision weren't enough to tell him what. Panic set in as the lack of air settled like a weight on his chest. He thrashed, trying to beat or tear at anything he could reach. It didn't do any good. _Have to focus... Have to get out of here..._

He remembered the shield generator in his pocket. Maybe it could do something. His head swimming, he dug it out and managed to turn it on. Pushing it forward and staying behind it, he managed to glimpse his surroundings just a little better. There was little to see; everything was bathed in an eerie fuchsia luminance from the massive crystal that encased the creature. The folds of membrane that were indeed wrapped around him were thin but remarkably strong, transparent and shot through with spiderweb like veins. In front of him, he could see the massive eye from the rear and all of the connective tissue that protruded from it.

Mack tried again to pump oxygen into his lungs. Despite the feeling of sucking down fire, he must have been getting some small amount of air because he was still conscious. He wondered if the shield were helping. _I can fix this. I'm an engineer; it's what I do._ He thought about his pistols which still sat snugly their holsters. A few shots from one of them might hurt it, but it wouldn't get him out. He needed something with a little more kick to it.

He hastily strapped the shield generator to his wrist and pulled out one of his guns. He had minutes at best before unconsciousness took him. Dimly, he was aware of other bodies floating through the haze of caustic liquid and thin membrane. He didn't want to end up like them.

He yanked the energy cartridge out of the pistol and replaced the weapon in its holster. Even that small task was enough to send waves of pain down his arm, through his chest, and over his back, the dislocated shoulder rendering the limb nearly useless. Kicking forward and feeling like he were swimming through molasses, he forced his way to the cluster of tendons behind the eye and crammed the glowing cylinder into the mess tightly. Hard as he could, he pushed away from it and pulled out his other gun. Holding up the shield, he fired around it, nailing the power cell. The kickback on his wounded shoulder would have made him scream if he'd had enough air in his lungs to do so.

The resulting explosion knocked him back to the far wall of his prismatic prison, the force field protecting him from the blast but not the shock wave. His head was swimming. The pain was much more dim now; even his dislocated shoulder didn't throb so badly. He knew that he was slipping away. A terrible, ear-splitting howl resonated around him. The eye was blasted outward in a shower of gore, and the thick, gelatinous ooze that surrounded him poured from the resulting gaping hole. He felt himself falling forward, washed into the mercifully fresh air of the mines.

* * *

Bailey was at a loss. One moment she had been frantic, wondering how she was going to beat this thing without Mack and the mining laser. The next, the creature had exploded, raining mucusy bits over every exposed surface- including her. She wasn't sure what had happened, but she had a feeling that crazy hick of a pilot was responsible. Trust a redneck to make virtually anything explode.

Several bodies thunked to the floor, and she trotted forward, hoping fervently that his was among them- and that he was still breathing. Pawing through the bits of alien innards, she managed to find him and pull him from the gooey puddle. "C'mon, you crazy son of a bitch, you'd better be alive," she muttered, and was rewarded with a weak cough.

She sat down cross-legged and waited as he gagged the alien digestive juices out of his system. Her eyes wandered over the other bodies that had fallen out. Her team. Two were simply dead; she didn't have to examine them to be able to tell. One was halfway through mutation and quivering, twitching grotesquely. Heart in her stomach, she stood and approached the wretched creature.

"It's over..." she whispered, putting her mining laser to its head. She looked away as she pulled the trigger. She didn't want to see which one it had been. It didn't matter. They were all dead now. She hadn't saved a single one of them.

Mack raised himself onto one arm, finally able to draw an unhindered breath. "Bails?" he coughed. "You okay?"

She turned back to him. "You're kidding, right?" she asked, looking down at him; a gunky mess, unable to get to his feet, his left arm hanging uselessly at his side. She took his arm in her hands before he could protest. "Sorry about this," she said and snapped his shoulder back into place.

Mack let out a howl of pain and collapsed back to the floor. "Dagnabbit, woman, warn me next time!" he gasped, rolling onto his back.

Bailey knelt next to him. "...Next time?" she asked wryly, and helped him to his feet once he'd recovered himself. "Just how often do you think we're going to do this?"

"Often enough to tell ya not to do it." Mack regarded her, then looked past her and to the bodies lying on the floor in a puddle of gore. His expression, pained though it was, softened. "Well, after all that... how's about comin' with me? I could use a partner. Yer pretty good in a tight spot- and admittedly, this is pert near the tightest spot I've been in. What do ya say?"

Bailey turned, following his gaze to her dead science team. The mine was in shambles. She didn't know if it would recover; there were survivors, but the brains running it had been down here, at ground zero. She'd lost her second home now. She didn't want another one to lose. Just her, the stars, and this slow-talking bumpkin she'd never get attached to. "Works for me," she said out loud. "There's nothing left for me here."

Mack staggered toward her, holding his aching shoulder. "Don't suppose ya know a way outta here? I think we're trapped..."

Bailey pointed to a narrow access stair that connected to a raised catwalk at the far side of the room. "We found a massive crystal deposit up there. I know they were in the process of installing a teleporter pad so we didn't have to haul it all the way up to the surface, but I don't think they ever quite got it in working order."

"Shouldn't be too difficult as long as there's power goin' to it. I think I can get it going and have it take us right to my ship's pad." Mack, with Bailey's aid, ascended the stairs to the catwalk. By the amount of weight he was putting on her shoulder, she was sure he was near collapse. She hoped breathing in that alien goo hadn't done any major internal damage.

He went straight to work on the teleporter, and she had to admit, if only to herself, that she was mildly impressed. Knowing how to hot wire was one thing, but this was delicate, complicated equipment and he seemed to know his way around it with ease. On top of that, with his injuries, she was surprised he could focus at all. She wanted nothing more than to collapse, and she was pretty sure after all that, he felt even worse. Being swallowed by a giant crystal monster will do that to a man.

"Alright. That should do it." Mack straightened as the teleporter hummed to life. "Let's get the hell outta here."

"Wait. You did come here for a shipment." Bailey gestured to the waiting crates stacked along the wall. "After all that, you should take it." She picked a matter manipulator up from the top of the stack. The roughly C-shaped device didn't actually manipulate matter; it altered the gravity around a given object, allowing one to lift and move it with ease. It had been left here for the purpose of relocating the crates but, disillusioned as she was with her current job, she decided to take it with her. It may come in handy.

Mack nodded once. "If'n yer sure. Though... Boss's money's already invested in this shipment, so he'd prolly have my head if I refused it." He managed a small grin.

Bailey pointed the matter manipulator at the topmost shipping crate and gently lowered it onto the teleporter pad. "So if I'm going with you, where to next?"

"Bed." Mack stepped up onto the pad with the crate. "And no smart-ass comments abou' propriety," he added when she opened her mouth to respond. "Ya know what I meant."

"You're no fun at all."

Mack grinned again. "You kiddin'? I got more laughs'n a barrel a' monkeys," he deadpanned and activated the teleporter, leaving Bailey to roll her eyes.

* * *

Bailey snapped awake and found herself staring up at the dimmed ceiling lights of Carmack's rusted out junk-heap of a ship. She wasn't sure what had woke her so abruptly, but she felt as though she'd been out for quite awhile.

She'd barely shared more than a few sentences with Mack since they'd boarded. He'd taken off, and put in a course before pointing her to a beat-up looking sofa in the main living quarters of the ship. After that, he'd pretty much passed out on his bunk on the other side of the room. She hadn't really explored the area; she'd followed his example and collapsed onto the couch, exhausted and in considerable pain.

The exhaustion was gone now at least, though now she felt stiff and sore when she moved. The hole in her side hadn't magically gone away while she was sleeping, and now, without the artificial adrenaline coursing through her, it hurt like a son of a bitch. Wincing, she rolled over and saw that Mack wasn't in his bunk. She forced herself to sit up, carefully twisting from side to side to try to loosen up. Sparks of pain shot through her torso.

After freshening up in the modest bathroom, she wandered into the cockpit where Mack was sitting and studying the computer. He must have heard her walk in because he picked his head up and gave her a small half-wave. "Hey. How ya feelin'?"

"Like ass." She flopped into the unused copilot's chair with a sigh. "What's going on? Looks like we came out of light speed."

He nodded with a frown. "FTL drive's ruptured. I knew it needed some repairs, but I was hopin' to get to a station or an outpost or somethin' before I tackled it. "

"You know how to repair it on your own?" she asked nervously. "That's something you'd usually leave to a professional..."

Mack laughed. "Missy, I _am_ the professional. Graduated from Texas Technical University when I was seventeen and went straight into NASA after. Majored in aerospace engineerin'. I think I'm qualified ta fix my own FTL drive, thanks."

Bailey stared at him. "...You mean to tell me that you're a _literal_ rocket scientist?" she asked, dumbfounded.

"Well... I reckon I am."

"Then... what are you doing flying around in this rusty old bucket running freight?" Clearly, she had misjudged this guy. He wasn't just a resourceful, lucky redneck. He was a damned genius.

His mood turned very somber. "No offense to ya, but... I'd rather not talk about it."

She didn't need to pry to understand. There was no NASA anymore. There was no Earth. He was no more ready to talk about that painful day over a year ago than she was. In a way, it was a comfort knowing that there was someone she could silently share her pain with, but at the same time she resented it. She didn't want to share any kind of connection with Mack. She vowed, no matter what, that she wouldn't care what happened to him. She'd lost what she cared about one too many times.

"Alright," she said, changing the subject. "What's the name of the ship, anyway? I don't think you ever said."

"Uh... Ship," he said absently, continuing to study the coordinate layout on the console.

"Seriously?" she responded flatly. "Ship? You named your ship Ship?"

He shrugged. "Well, that's what it is, ain't it?"

"God help you if you ever have children." She leaned forward on her elbows. "Anyway, where are we heading?"

He nodded at the screen. "I'm checkin' out the system to see if'n there're any planets with a breathable atmosphere and a safe temperature. These repairs'll be real hard if I gots ta do 'em in deep space. Like, I'd prolly have ta turn off the life support systems kinda hard."

"Yeah..." Bailey said slowly. "Let's try to avoid that one. What happened to the ship? Seems like a guy as smart as you're claiming to be would know better than to make a freight run with his FTL drive about to blow."

"Smart enough, but not rich enough. We needed the Erchius crystals fer the repairs. Figured we'd buy 'em wholesale and resell what we don't use for a profit. The boss and I, I mean. I... haven't really gotten on my feet yet, so to speak. I know this old gal needs a lotta work, but it happens as we get the money to make it happen."

He tapped a couple of keys on the console, zooming in on one small turquoise planet in the system. "Here we go. This'n's got acceptable levels of oxygen, slightly lower gravity than we're probably used to, lower radiation, and an average temperature of about eighty degrees Fahrenheit. No known settlements, which makes me think the local flora and fauna ain't too friendly, though. We'd better find a safe place to set down and stay on our toes."

"Couldn't be any worse than our last situation," she sighed as he plotted in the course. "I may not be able to fix your ship, but I have decent survival skills. You get this rust bucket back in the air, and I'll make sure we stay alive long enough to do so. Sound fair?"

He nodded. "See? I'm already glad I brought ya along. I wanna take a look at that wound ya got, though. It could probably use some medical attention. I ain't no doctor, but I know how to use a basic first aid kid."

Her instinct was to deny needing any treatment, but she reminded herself that there was no room for pride in a survival situation. He'd take care of her wounds, and she'd take care of his. Ignoring a problem, even a seemingly small one, could have deadly consequences.

"Right. What do we have by way of medical supplies? I'm no doctor either, but you learn to treat wounds when you're away from civilization as much as I was." She stood up to follow him from the cockpit.

Mack wandered almost lazily back into the living quarters. The crates of Erchius crystals were still stacked in the corner where they'd left them. Normally such a thing would go into the cargo hold, but Bailey was pretty sure this ship didn't have one. "Mack... Is there more to this ship? It feels like there should be," she finally asked, scrutinizing the modest surroundings.

"There was. Had to separate," was all he would say. The way his mouth was pressed together in a thin, tight line, Bailey was pretty sure that was all she was going to get. Some ships were built to be able to break apart, and the cockpit could operate free of the bulk of the rest of the craft. She wasn't sure what had happened that had caused Mack to lose the rest of his ship, but it was obvious that the experience had been a painful one.

Mack retrieved the med kit from its place in the bathroom as Bailey pulled her shirt up enough to reveal the wound in her torso. He knelt beside her, pressing at various points around the area gently. "Tell me if anything hurts more'n it should. I wanna make sure there's no organ damage."

Bailey waited patiently, grunting in pain since her side was still tender. She finally shook her head. "It doesn't feel any worse than having a hole through me should."

Mack opened a tube of cream and applied the cool burn salve to the singed skin around the wound. "This should help with the surface pain. I'll give ya a shot a' anesthetic and an antibiotic fer the rest." As he readied the auto-injector, he asked conversationally, "Never thought of geology as a rough-an-tumble sorta job. How'd ya come to know all that survival stuff ya talked about?"

Bailey knew he was trying to keep her mind off of the pain. Having needles stuck in her side wasn't exactly the highlight of her day. "Well, when I wasn't interning at various labs- mostly off-world- I joined up with... well, I guess for lack of a better word, gold-diggers. You know, those guys like you'd see on TV back in the day who'd go to dangerous, remote locations like Greenland looking for gold and gems, and they'd always bring a geologist along."

"Pretty interestin' choice a' profession," Mack commented as he stuck the auto-injector against her flesh and activated it.

She hissed in pain as the two tiny needles pierced her skin and pumped their contents into her veins. "Maybe it was a bit of defiance," she admitted. "I wanted to get away and see the worlds, not be tied down-" She shook her head. "This is getting too personal."

Mack straightened, tossing the disposable auto-injector into the nearby waste receptacle. "You don't have to talk 'bout anythin' ya don't want to. Neither of us do. Agreed?"

"Agreed." That was a relief that he understood the desire to keep each other at arm's length. She didn't want a friend. She didn't want someone to confide in. She just wanted someone who could pilot a ship and a job to distract her. None of those were things she would miss if they were suddenly taken away from her again. She rummaged through the med kit and managed to locate a muscle relaxant and another shot of anesthetic. "There's not much we can do about that shoulder other than try to relieve the pain a little. That, and try not to use it, if you can help it."

"Yeah. I'll get right on that. Maybe I'll just tie both arms behind my back and repair the ship with my teeth." Mack didn't have much of a reaction to the injection. She suspected that he hurt badly enough that he barely felt that little sting.

"...Not gonna lie, I'd pay pixels to see that," she said with a small chuckle. "Now off with the shirt, big boy. You've got chemical burns on your chest that I need to look at."

"I think those'll be alright," he answered as he complied, pulling the ratty, sleeveless shirt over his head, balling it up, and tossing it onto the couch. Bailey thought the stained, stinking garment belonged in the trash instead. His skin was an angry, raw pink where the bile had struck him, and even where it had not it looked tender just from being inside of the Erchius horror. Fortunately, it all seemed to be surface irritation and nothing deeper. She applied a generous amount of burn salve and capped the tube.

"Well, not quite good as new, but we can work with it. Also, if you try to put that gross-ass shirt back on, I'm going to burn it," she said calmly as she reorganized the med cit and put it back on its shelf.

Mack froze mid-way to reaching for it. "What's wrong with my shirt?" he whined, but he retrieved a clean one from the drawer just the same. He pulled it on, knocking his battered old NASA hat askew.

Bailey followed him back into the cockpit and reclined in the copilot's chair as they slowly approached their new destination. The prospect of landing on a new, unexplored world that potentially no one had ever seen before was exciting and had her mind abuzz with thoughts of new geological samples and potentially valuable minerals. The idea of walking where no other humanoid had ever walked was thrilling. She only wished the situation were a better one. At the very least, it was a distraction that she could focus on.

The approach alert chimed, signaling that they were drawing close to the planet. She leaned over to look at Mack's screen and see if it had a name, but only a serial number appeared above its diagram. She watched as the world slowly grew in the cockpit's reinforced window until she could see nothing else.

"Whelp, saya hello to home for the next few days. The food stores on board are alright, but they're nothin' but ration bars, so I say we should see what we can make edible and gather what we can make sellable while we're here." Mack, she noticed, didn't even have to look down at the keys he was tapping as he laid in the landing vector.

"How 'bout the repairs themselves? Do you think they'll take long?" she wondered, strapping herself in against the threat of turbulence.

"Hard to say. Normally, I'd give myself about four to six hours on it, depending on how bad it's gotten, but it might take longer with the injury." The atmosphere rushed past the window, clouds briefly blocking their view. Abruptly, the ground came into view, a sea of jewel-blue plant life and exotic rusty-barked trees in a thriving forest.

Mack set the ship down in a clearing and stood up, strapping his pistols to his hips. "Ya ready? We should prolly have a lil' look-see around before we get started."

Bailey tossed her labcoat over the back of the couch. The length of it was likely to get caught in the brush, and the balmy humidity listed on the planetary status would've made it uncomfortable to wear long sleeves. She clipped the mining laser and the matter manipulator to her belt. "This place has me worried," she admitted as the hatch opened and the two stepped out into an exotic, tropical paradise.

"Yeah? Why's that?" Mack wondered, looking over the landscape in admiration.

"Because it's beautiful and nobody's here. So what's wrong with it?"


End file.
